South Mecklenburg News

The North Carolina GOP press secretary questioned if voters can trust Cal Cunningham as a U.S. senator if he can’t remain true to his wife.

Cunningham’s admission to sending flirtatious texts to the wife of an enlisted service member may have violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the NCGOP said on its website.

“We know this sexual texting scandal is likely the tip of an iceberg of shady conduct, which explains why Cal Cunningham has remained locked in his windowless basement, hiding from reporters, and shunning North Carolinians for this entire campaign,” NCGOP Press Secretary Tim Wigginton said on the website.

Military service has been a key component of Cunningham’s campaign, the NCGOP reported.

Extramarital affairs violate the UCMJ, but whether Cunningham was subject to the code depends on if he was on active duty when the extramarital activity took place, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.

Cunningham, 47, serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve in its Judge Advocate General Corps out of Fort Bragg and assigned to the 134th Legal Operations Detachment at Fort Bragg the Army Reserve Legal Command.

“If these messages were not sent when he was in duty status, they are not punishable under the UCMJ,” Eugene R. Fidell, a former Coast Guard judge advocate and current adjunct professor at NYU Law School, told the News and Observer. “Based on what we currently know, this is not a UCMJ matter.”

Cunningham is the Democratic challenger to the U.S. Senate seat held by Thom Tillis. BallotPedia marks the race as “toss-up” and “tilt Democratic.”